Awww…I understand this completely, as my D20 found a job in her college city and “launched” right after graduation. That said, she’s now planning to return home for a year next year to attend grad school in the area. So…never say never. Life is long and full of twists and turns.
Congratulations to your son!
The struggle is real and a big adjustment! My D never was home for more than a few weeks after she left for freshman year. Now she lives 900 miles away.
My son is in a similar situation. He goes to a school on the quarter system and on the other coast. He left for Winter quarter in early January, and got a paid research position for the summer which starts a week or so after the Spring quarter ends in mid June. He will visit home for about 3 weeks after the research position ends in late August, then back to the other coast for fall quarter. We won’t see him for almost 8 months…this is quite the change.
S24 is working on the same thing. I am hopefully he will get one, they are very competitive. I will miss him but it is so much better than spending a summer doing something less meaningful
Have been AWOL from this thread for a while so it is nice to read about many kids’ successes. S24 has gotten off to a much better second semester and seems happier at school which has been a relief to his parents. Like many at uva, he’ll be living off campus next year. Hopefully that will be a good experience. Hard to believe year one is more than half over.
Good luck to your son - I hope he gets one!
And I fully agree. I’d much rather miss him while he’s doing exactly what he wants to be doing!
Wonder if our kids are at the same school? Stanford?
D24 asked one of her professors (Boston area college) if they would be willing to introduce her to any contacts they might have in Chicagoland so that she could spend the summer doing research near home. An introduction was made and things are looking promising.
Yup…Stanford it is!
We got to talk to D24 for awhile last night. She misses her roommate. She also biffed it late last weekend and tripped on a sidewalk, ripped her favorite leggings, and banged up & scraped her knee.
Of course, my mom brain went into overdrive and I asked her a bazzillion questions. Kid said, “Mama, it’s not bad enough that I have to go get it looked at. It’s just uncomfortable if I have to stand on it for a long amount of time. I’m taking ibuprofen and all that. I’ll be fine.” 
DH, in turn, is worried that D24 only hangs out with Roommate because that’s the person she really only talks about. D24 said, “Duh, I have plenty of other friends. I just don’t talk about them a lot. I have friends in my classes, friends in choir, friends in my dorm.” 
She also said that she really likes how all of her professors know her by name, likes how she’s ‘not just a number in a sea of hundreds of students in a huge lecture hall,’ likes how friendly people are there.
She also talked about dating a bit. Inside my head, I was like, “Oh, really?” but outwardly, it was, “oh, ok” and chill. 
She said that “my friends & I have all decided that the freshmen boys are all still going a little crazy about hook-ups and we don’t want to get any diseases nor do we want to get pregnant. I mean, heck, this is Texas. Abortion here is almost totally illegal. We all hope that they calm down a little bit by sophomore year. The freshmen boys who aren’t trying to hook up all the time all have girlfriends back home. So they either want to sleep with any female at all or they’re a monk and not interested.”
D24 called after her classes were done today. She’s heard from Roommate. Roommate will be returning to school this weekend.
D24 said she thinks she did really well on a French test she had today. Also had a chemistry test today.
She said that she’s sort of hibernating in her room today because of Valentine’s Day “and oh my gosh, Mama, I got stuck in an elevator with a couple going on a first date and bleh. And this girl in my dorm was gushing about this huge basket of stuff that a guy got her and oh my gosh, ok already. Like, I saw it when she was bringing it in and it was the biggest basket you’ve ever seen.”
We talked to D24 via text quite a lot yesterday (Valentine’s Day). I think it’s really interesting that Gen Z is so scared of real-life feelings with each other (not with family or their parents). Even though she is “talking to” a young man (mutual declared interest and what we oldies would call casual dating), they apparently avoid Valentine’s Day because it is too serious for their stage of dating. In my day, we would have given each other cards and not made a big deal of it! I think some of this weirdness is the post-Covid standoffishness–but it’s also highly intelligent people watching their peers go crazy for someone and get burned (social media examples, not examples of friends in person). I’m not sure it’s a bad thing that they are so cautious. There are lessons that they’ve learned third-hand that some of us Gen Xers had to learn painfully, in person.
Spoke to D24 on Saturday because she was “going to be too busy Sunday for our normal call” (this was music to my ears). It was probably the most detailed, animated conversation we’ve had to date since she’s been away.
Sorority bid night was exciting and a lot of fun. She sent me a link to a video from the night and it looks like there was a lot of raucous pomp and circumstance. D24 looked really happy. She’s got a number of required “coffee dates” this week to get to know members, is looking forward to that.
Classes are going well. They are definitely harder this semester, but so far she feels like she is keeping up fine. She had her first Chem and Calc exams. Still waiting on the grades, but she thought they went well. Eng comp is her least favorite class (boring) but she likes the instructor. Physics is the most difficult (so much information!) but going to the optional weekly recitation is helping a lot.
A boy asked her to be his valentine and they were going out on Saturday night. (seriously? that sounds adorable and very 7th grade. I did not ask many follow up questions, because I have a rule to not ask/get invested as D24 has been boy crazy forever and there’s been a steady stream of boys since 9th grade). The only info I got was that she’s “been hanging out with him for a bit” and he’s in a fraternity that her friend has a lot of friends in. So, we’ll see what happens. The fall semester boyfriend (I’m not kidding when I say there’s always one) was not a student at her school and was away at Marine boot camp. I was not super happy for her to get involved with someone not at school at a time when she needs to be throwing herself into making a home/community there, iykwim, so I am happy that this one at least goes there.
There has been a ton of snow there but D24 reports she’s acclimating to the cold and that basically any day it is 30 or above feels like a jacket-optional one 
All in all, a very good update.
Back from a long weekend to see S24 play in the Nationals for one of his club sports. It was also a combination of Valentine’s Day and NiceUnparticularMom’s birthday a few days later, so lots to celebrate.
S24 has really been putting in the time to try to improve in this sport, and it paid off–he did great individually. The team, not so much, but he obviously still had a very fun time and it was fantastic to get to watch him in action.
The other reason I have not been posting so much lately is related to the above conversation. Just after Christmas, NiceUnparticularMom suggested she might want a dartboard for her birthday. Long story short, this has morphed into a full-blown DIY basement renovation (or as I like to call it, a “dartboard and accessories, some assembly required”). We’re throwing most of our spare time into the project.
And a big part of why is we realized this may well be the last summer our S24 stays in our home, and we want to give him and his friends the best possible time. So we are really going all out, and some might even call it a coping mechanism.
And if in fact it helps us cope, isn’t that really the best birthday present for NiceUnparticularMom? Although I still have not gotten to the point we can actually play darts yet . . . .
D24’s roommate is back. D24 said yesterday that she was trying to avoid the dining hall because there was a big high school student recruiting event on campus yesterday and “all of the parents stare at us like we’re animals at the zoo.” 
Totally ironic because it was about a year ago that we were one of those families doing exactly that!
Sounds like “Darts” = “full wet bar,” and maybe a pool table while you’re at it
It is amazing the number of things for which I can get NiceUnparticularMom to sign off when I suggest it is for the boy. I should have done this years ago.
That said, the orange chenille sofa I wanted did get shot down (I believe NiceUnparticularMom actually told S24, “You better talk to your father if you don’t want an orange sofa”). How uncharacteristically particular of them . . . .
Fortunately, being an ace negotiator, I knew a sofa was a big ask, but I was able to bargain down to two orange velvet swivel chairs. If I had started there, I would have been lucky to get a footstool.
You need to concoct an orange-themed cocktail for the basement’s grand opening celebration. 
I mean, now that you mention it, it just seems like the obvious move . . . .
Got word that classes are cancelled for today starting 3 pm through end of day tomorrow at D24’s college due to the weather. Meanwhile, here at home, it’s 73 degrees.
